Thursday, April 22, 2010

I received my first honeybees on March 26, 2010. It was pouring with rain when I drove to Gary's Heavenly Honey Farm in Puyallup to pick up my two "nucs" (a mini-hive used for transporting a laying queen, workers and drones on already established foundation). As we loaded them into the back of the Jeep Gary gave me some tips on how to get them from the nuc to my new hives. It sounded so easy!

As I drove home, with the nucs inside nylon laundry bags (to keep any escapees from getting loose inside the car), the western sky was starting to clean up.

By the time I got home the rain had stopped but it was starting to get dark (7:00PM in late March) and the wind was rising.

My husband, David, and our daughter Katie were waiting to help. I rushed to light up the smoker (which just wouldn't light), rushed to put on my bee gear (and forgot to tuck the cuffs of my jeans into my socks), and rushed way too much.

Eventually, we got the majority of the bees inside the hive, but I was concerned about those lingering inside the nucs. Would they die in the night? Would they drown in the rain? I propped the nucs up so the open side was facing the entrance to the hives and hoped for the best.

I was stung only once when a worker climbed up my pant leg and stung me on the back of my thigh. A bee got inside my veil and walked across my cheek, across my eye (which was closed at the time) and investigated my left nostril throughly. A bit of a panic here. Scrambling to get off the veil and David, who is always ready for every circumstance, cut the string on the veil so I could get out!